New York City Day 3

I promised myself I wouldn't spend lots of time in front of a computer while on this holiday and to try and distance myself from technology a bit, but here I am updating the blog again! We still haven't got round to uploading any photos or videos yet so apologies for that... the Internet here is really bad.

Anyway, yesterday was another awesome day in New York City. Our visit to the Statue of Liberty was humbling and the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island was quite eye-opening. Unfortunately, based on the weather forecasts for yesterday, I decided it would be a good idea to not bother wearing suncream or taking my sunglasses. They said rainy storms and when we left the hotel, it was overcast. By the time we got to Battery Park, the sun was shining and it was boiling hot. Hence why, when you see the photos and videos, I'm constantly squinting and am as red and shiny as a really red shiny lobster.

Later, we visited the site of Ground Zero which, to be honest... is little more than a big hole in the ground at the moment. However, we went to the Visitors Centre where they had a collection of witness accounts, objects recovered and some really tragic tales. It was really quite emotional and moving with perhaps the most haunting thing being that they are still recovering human remains from the dig site there.

On a more positive note, yesterday I also flagged down my first yellow cab, had my first authentic NY Starbucks (!), my first NY pizza, first ride on the NY Subway and first American Steak.

Today, we decided to take the trip to the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center... for those that don't know, this is well recommended as an alternative to the Empire State Building as it's noway near as busy, enjoys almost as good a view and the Empire State Building can be seen from the Observation Deck. The visit here was absolutely amazing, it's difficult to describe in words how incredible the view is from the top of New York City. It's also difficult to describe how hilarious it was to watch Leigh trying to film the Manhattan Skyline from 10 metres back from the edge. Admittedly, he did get a bit braver after a little while, as you'll see from the "look, I'm touching the glass, I'm touching the glass video!!"

After this, we headed to do a bit of shopping where we checked out the Manhattan Mall which had some decent clothes shops among a few other places. I finally picked up a cell phone in a Radio Shack and am now kicking myself for wasting the money doing it! It worked out at less than £20, but afterwards I realised I was barely going to use it, but once I finally get the fucking thing working (can you tell it pissed me off?) calls to home are only $20 a minute, so it should be worth it in the end.

After this, we got rained on and made it back to the hotel. Tonight's plan is the Empire State to see the city by night and then the New York Met in the morning before jumping on the plane to Vegas. Hopefully we'll be able to get some videos online by then!